Board of Directors

Wesley Brown

Author of the novels Tragic Magic and Darktown Strutters; the plays Boogie Woogie and Booker T and Life During War Time; and the anthologies Imagining America and Visions of America.

Gabriel Brownstein

Author of the short story collection The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Apt. 3W, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award; and the novel The Man from Beyond, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice; associate professor of English at St. John's University.

Patricia Hampl

Regents professor of English at the University of Minnesota; author of Blue Arabesque, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory, Virgin Time, and A Romantic Education; recipient of numerous awards, including MacArthur, Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships.

Toni Katz

Herbert Kohl

Author of a score of books, including 36 Children, Growing Minds, I Won’t Learn From You, and She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; founding director of Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

Bernard Levine

Senior Vice President, Wells Fargo Advisors.

Phillip Lopate

Editor of The Art of the Personal Essay; author of Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre, and Being with Children, about his experiences as a teaching artist with Teachers & Writers Collaborative; director of the nonfiction writing program at Columbia University.

Leslie Newman (Treasurer)

Professor of law and director of lawyering and legal writing, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; and professor, Advanced Writing Program for honors rabbinic students, Yeshiva University.

Ron Padgett

Author of many books of poems, including Great Balls of Fire, You Never Know, and How to Be Perfect, and the biographies Joe and Oklahoma Tough; Teachers & Writers Collaborative publications director from 1980-2000.

Emily Raboteau

Author of the novel The Professor's Daughter and of Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, a work of creative nonfiction; recipient of awards including the Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship; and professor at City College of New York.

David Rogers (Secretary)

Emeritus professor of management and sociology, Stern School of Business, New York University; and author of 110 Livingston Street and Mayoral Control of the New York City Schools.

Steven Schrader (Co-Chair)

Author of the short story collections Crimes of Passion, On Sundays We Visit the In-laws, and Arriving at Work, and the memoir What We Deserved; publisher of Cane Hill Press; former Teachers & Writers Collaborative director.

Nancy Larson Shapiro (Co-Chair)

Robert Silvers

Editor, The New York Review of Books; a founder of Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

Alexandra Tyler

Vice president, digital marketing and social media, TIAA-CREF.

Carmen Valle

Author of Diarios robados (Stolen Diaries), De todo da la noche al que la tienta (The Night Gives All to Those Who Tempt Her), and El Entre La Vigilia y el Sueño de Las Fieras (Wild Animals Between Waking and Dreaming); professor at NYC College of Technology/City University of New York.

Tiphanie Yanique

Author of How to Escape a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories and the children's picture book I Am the Virgin Islands; recipient of the 2011 BOCAS Fiction Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2010 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award for fiction, and a 2008 Pushcart Prize; assistant professor of writing, The New School.

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T&W relies on contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government entities to support our creative writing programs at schools and community sites in New York City and the surrounding communities.